Taipei: Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical Corp ill defer the arrival of one Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) to September from August, and another to the fourth quarter following a blast which forced it to shut its massive refinery, its spokesman said on Tuesday.

Formosa imports an average of seven to eight VLCCs a month and 90 percent of the crude are from the Middle East.

It has term contracts with major Gulf producers except Oman and Qatar, and imports less than 1 percent of crude from West Africa for the whole year from the spot market. One VLCC normally carries 2 million barrels of crude.

A trading source said that Formosa would be deferring its term crude cargoes and would try to resell its spot Middle Eastern cargoes if it could find buyers.

The 540,000 barrel-per-day refinery was shut on July 26, following a fire which started at its residue desulphurisation unit (RDS). It has since restarted one of its three crude distillation units (CDUs) last Thursday.
(Source:www.seatradeasia-online.com)